Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Conans Pizza on Anderson

My husband teases me a lot for my list-making obsession, but if I were making a list of places you'd only find in Austin, Conans would be in the top five. Here's the scene, it's clean, but appears "dungeony", dark and dated and is over-the-top with the Conan the Barbarian themed decor. There are some tables, but most of the seating is in private wooden booths. By the way, if anyone knows the ladylike way to get a well-fed butt in and out of those booths, please let me know. Yeah, I could just lose a little weight, but I won't lose weight eating at Conans, that's for sure. Inside these little wooden booth cocoons, you can feel free to leave some graffiti carved into the walls. I've sat in most of these, and can tell you who loves who. Please, people, get some new material, the heart with an arrow through it is just so derivative.

Anyway, Conans has been around for 35 years and has a personality all its own. My favorite moment was one time when they were blasting a song by the band Tyr (a Danish metal band) and suddenly, from the kitchen, someone sang along at the top of his lungs "I will decimate and decapitate". We just busted out laughing. This place is real, the vibe is real, and it's not for hipsters.

I have "pizza moods". Sometimes I want a foldable New York style, sometimes I want a crispy cracker crust with some char, and then sometimes I want a pizza to sink my teeth into. While Conans does offer both thin and thick crust, it's their thick crust I crave when I'm in that mood. It's occasionally a little underdone, which makes it even better, a little yeastier, butter-ier and more saturated in flavors (aka "grease"). They call it Chicago Style on their website, but true Chicago Style has the sauce on the top so that it can cook longer and allow the meats to get cooked all the way through. Conans precooks the meats so they can put the cheese on the top, which I actually prefer. This method allows the cheese to get a little brown on top. It's the best of all worlds, in my pizza-loving opinion.

Delicious Dish

Cheese should always do this.

Their thin crust is braided.

Real plants give it a nice "homey" touch.

Conan pictures give it a Barbaric touch

If I keep eating here, they may have to cut me out of one of these booths.